ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the discussion of writers whose encounter with French is a product of colonization. Chantal Spitz, from French Polynesia, was the first Ma’ohi writer to be published. L’île des rêves écrasés, published in 1991, was a groundbreaking text in terms of Tahitian culture and language. Basing the analysis on this partially autobiographical text, I show how Spitz interweaves the Tahitian and French languages. In the first section, “Defying Bilingualism,” I analyze Spitz’s technique of incorporating lengthy passages of Tahitian in her prose. I show that by writing five pages in Tahitian with no translation, for example, Spitz stages her resistance to French literary standards. In the second section, “Defying Monolingualism,” I examine the techniques Spitz develops to translanguage between French and Tahitian. By incorporating Tahitian expressions into her predominantly French-language prose, Spitz calls attention to the different histories, ideologies and beliefs inherent in the French and Tahitian languages. In particular, I examine the way in which Spitz’s texts incorporate both poetry and prose in a nod to Tahitian oral literature and a further refusal of French literary conventions. The final section, “Defying Biculturalism,” broadens the discussion of language to Spitz’s representation of French and Tahitian cultures. I argue that her work demonstrates the insurmountable obstacles to linguistic and cultural harmony. Overall, I show that Spitz writes predominantly in the French language but unsubtly destabilizes it and resits its hegemony. Her texts rest between languages, between cultures and between literary conventions and accentuate the power of the Tahitian language in the face of colonial imposition.
